Thursday, December 4, 2008

Del's Dace

Has it been a week already? It seems like just yesterday we had 25 people over for Thanksgiving dinner.......and that was just my family and a friend and his two kids. Lot's of fun, no calamities, and good food all around. Man, that went fast!

Now for your reading pleasure: I have heard back from Chris DelPlato about his Black-nosed Dace imitation and he has been kind enough to send me a couple of photos to share with you.

About 40 years ago or more, fly tyer/innovator and author, Art Flick, developed a bucktail streamer fly to imitate the dace. This pattern was effective from the start and today it still occupies space in just about every fly fishers arsenal of patterns. Here is a photo of the original fly in all its glory - a simple tie using dyed bucktail for the wing:

Here's the natural Black-nosed Dace.

Then along comes master streamer tyer, Chris DelPlato, and he comes up with this beautiful imitation shown below. Look at the natural, and then look at this (the fly in the photo has been wetted and looks darker than it really is as no light is coming through from behind it as it would in the water) - what more can I say? Tie some up!! Oh, and flatten that barb, Del! : )

Wing - Russian squirrel tail on top of a thin bunch of smoke or tan coloredUnique Hair (to get color separation between lateral line and back). You can substitute for the squirrel with other long, fine darker hair when tying larger sizes.